A score? Or not?

Member2.

NULL

Just thought i would get the opinion of all the learned folks on here....

My neighbor is moving away and the house is up for sale as he got transferred.
He was not a wood burner, he had a pellet stove. He did however have a huge pile of rounds that he says is elm and i will have to take his word for it as i have no idea what elm looks like.

He told me i could have it all if i wanted it so i went over today and loaded up the truck with it. What puzzles me is that the rounds are huge...but not all that heavy. Even though i am in fairly good shape for 54 and no weakling...i really had no problems at all loading them up. He said its been there 3 years.
Looks to be about 5 full truck-loads of wood here.

My questions are:

Is elm very good burning? Should it really be that light for as big as these are? Was this a score or just some exercise for me?

I did split a few rounds and brought them in to burn right away. They seemed very very dry and burned well. Not great...but pretty good.

Feeling the Heat2.

NULL

The elm we have here is brown in side and stringy, hard to split by hand. Did I say it was hard to split by hand. I would say it is maple, burns kinda hot but don't last long. Heck I am burning maple tonight and house is right at 74. NEVER seen elm split easy.

Minister of Fire2.

NULL

I would call Elm medium weight when dry. It's very heavy when fresh. Really it depends on what you're comparing it to. Lighter than Oak, heavier than Poplar.
Also the wood goes from brown when fresh to very pale color when dry, but not sure if the rounds would do the same. Red elm can split okay, American elm, not so much.

You aren't going to get a useful answer without a picture. Then we can all argue about what it is & maybe even figure it out

Minister of Fire2.

NULL

Some species of the elm from over seas can be very light weight wise as light as Silver maple The stuff I have we call piss elm, heavy as heck when green very light when fully dry. Very light tan interior color when seasoned and stringy as hell when splitting green or dry. Once the mucus membrane ( very slimy and smells like piss.) just under the bark dries out the bark literately falls off. Burns hot and kinda quick in comparison to red Elm but produces reasonable coals. Similar type ( maybe the same) called Chinese elm grows like a weed actually is an invasive species.

Minister of Fire2.

NULL

Here are some picture of elm. I just happened to take these pictures to show the powder post beetle dust on them.

On the weight and splitting: Elm can indeed become very light in weight. The splits shown above were very light weight. As for the splitting, elm can split really easy at times. Yes, as easy as splitting white ash. The key is to let the tree dry and leave it standing until all or most of the bark has fallen. Then leaving it an extra year won't harm anything. If that tree was growing in the woods, it should split really easy. If it grew out in the open, all bets are off because it can really be twisted stuff.